Adaptive optics (“AO”) are used to control deformable mirrors to compensate for phase aberrations introduced, for example, by the turbulence in the Earth's atmosphere or by the optical elements between a distant object and its local sensor. Various low speed AO systems use a Shack Hartmann sensor and a least square reconstructor to control a continuous deformable mirror. Such systems are incapable of operating at higher frame rates, because of the processing overhead of the least square reconstructor. Accordingly, such systems are of little or no use in dynamically scintillated conditions.